Aim vs. Rapid Shot vs. neither

[jenx]

I also noticed the character has a willpower of 14 and a spell save of 72? Even if some items can give you such a large boost I am wondering how he got by, say, Dreadfall?

I"m not sure what the question is about. Luck of the Little Folk boosts saving throws a lot, and was on constantly.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

*cackles evilly as he casts necromantic spells*

Any thoughts on how the addition of poison to archers would affect aim vs rapid shot vs neither? Since poisons damage is affected by crit, the poison ticks on top of more crit damage might skew this in favor of aim... Anyone good enough with the maths/empirical testing to give us some results on this?

[lukep]

Since poisons damage is affected by crit...

It is? I couldn't find that when I looked through the code. Do you mean Cunning?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

My understanding when I asked in chat and it was explained, is that a hit that crits, and applies one of the poisons from the poisons tree, increases the damage applied on said poison, so it ticks for more a turn.

If this is the case, total aggregate damage over time with aim might now edge out rapid shot, given the higher crit rate and use of multiple poisons.

That said, even without the crit bonus aim provides, I question if aim would be better with the added poison DoT's, compared to rapid shot.

[EatThisShoe]

Ok since this discussion is back I guess I'll throw in my thoughts.

First of all the scaling on Aim is different in the beta, the speed reduction is actually bigger, although I think the other stat scaling is also changed. Speed was something like 8% -> 16% -> 22% -> 26% -> 29%. I'm going from memory here, but I think the crit chance also started bigger and had more diminishing returns. Someone in chat suggested it was probably from infinite scaling changes. This also begs the question of whether Aim is even meant to be run at 5/5 points.

That said most of my thoughts are on Aim in the pre-beta form. Some things may be changed from beta, or perhaps you can just run aim at 3/5 and get similar results.

Rapid Shot builds will fire vastly more basic shoot attacks and weaker cooldowns, while Aim builds can fire more Steady Shots as a percentage of total shots. An Aim build might not be built the same as a Rapid Shot build, particularly in terms of gear. Aim builds might find greater value in bows/slings which have -Steady Shot cooldown, or Archers Gloves and if they could avoid firing basic attacks their damage would be substantially greater than calculations based on basic attacks.

Another difference involves crits. While it's true that a rapid shot build can still hit 100% crit, those builds still require choosing gear or races that boost crit chance. An Aim build will thus choose different gear such as physical damage bonuses, physical damage penetration, or just defensive stats instead. Halfling Slingers are certainly less effected, but that says nothing of other races.

On poisons: I'm actually inclined to think Rapid Shot is better. I always viewed poisons as being more useful for their debuffing effects. As such more shots should be more chances to apply poisons. Although if the crit also increases the debuff effect it might be good. I am still thinking an Aim build would be hoping for one shot kills so I'm not sure Poisons would run their full course.